“Mma Makutsi,” she began. “I think that it is time to have a review. All this talk of jobs and not working and such matters has made me realise that we need to review things…”

She got no further. Mma Makutsi, who had been looking out of the window again, had seen a car draw up to park under the acacia tree.

“A client,” she said.

“Then please make tea,” said Mma Ramotswe.

As Mma Makutsi rose to her feet to comply, Mma Ramotswe breathed a discreet sigh of relief. Her authority, it seemed, was intact.

“SO, WE’RE COUSINS!” said Mma Ramotswe, her voice halfway between enthusiasm and caution. One had to be careful about cousins, who had a habit of turning up in times of difficulty—for them—and reminding you of cousinship. And the old Botswana morality, of which Mma Ramotswe was a stout defender, required that one should help a relative in need, even if the connection was a distant one. There was nothing wrong with that, thought Mma Ramotswe, but at times it could be abused. It all depended, it seemed, on the cousin.

She glanced discreetly at the man sitting in the chair in front of her desk, the man whom Mma Makutsi had spotted arriving and whom she had ushered into the office. He was well dressed, in a suit and tie, and his shoe laces, she noticed, were carefully tied. That was a sign of self-respect, and such evidence, together with his open demeanour and confident articulation, made it clear that this was not a distant cousin on the scrounge. Mma Ramotswe relaxed. Even if a favour was about to be asked for, it would not be one which would require money. That was something of a relief, given that the income of the agency over the past month had been so low. For a moment she allowed herself to think that this might even be a paying case, that the fact that the client was a cousin would make no difference when it came to the bill. But that, she realised, was unlikely. One could not charge cousins.

The man smiled at her. “Yes, Mma. We are cousins. Distant ones, of course, but still cousins.”

Mma Ramotswe made a welcoming gesture with her hands. “It is very good to meet a new cousin. But I was wondering…”

“How we are related?” the man interrupted. “I can tell you that quite simply, Mma. Your father was the late Obed Ramotswe, was he not?”

Mma Ramotswe nodded in confirmation: Obed Ramotswe—her beloved Daddy—the man who had raised her after the death of the mother she could not remember; Obed Ramotswe, the man who had scrimped and saved during all those hard, dark years down the mines and who had built up a herd of cattle that any man might be proud of. Not a day went past, not a day, but that she thought of him.